a lot of patience, a lot of love
by vindictive trollop
Summary: A town spreads out in front of you, streets and buildings and cars included, a woman standing in the middle of a street in a town that exists on no map ever made, a town that might very well be imaginary. After Ingrid and before The Snow Queen, there was Sarah Fisher.


**I remain, yours truly, forever bitter about Ingrid's death.**

—

_**one.**_

"Poor Kevin," says Ingrid sympathetically as the boy's screech of utter terror rings out in the moderate silence of the house.

Emma laughs and laughs and laughs, and Robbie comes from the kitchen, looking equal parts shocked and confused. He glances at the hysterical Emma, and then at Ingrid, blinking—and then, once more, back at Emma. "Did you just scream?" he asks.

Emma laughs harder. Ingrid takes a sip of her tea and says dryly, "That was Kevin."

It's proven when Kevin comes scrambling out of his room, yelling something about spiders in his bed.

Emma leans over to her, a few minutes later when Ingrid finally gets Kevin to calm down, and whispers, "How long d'you think it'll take for him to get that they were fake?"

Ingrid smiles. "Well, seeing as he refuses to even go back into his room, I'd say a while."

Emma starts giggling all over again.

Ingrid is certain that it's the most beautiful sound she's ever heard.

_**two.**_

"I love you," murmurs Emma into the crook of her neck. Ingrid's breath catches. She can smell Emma's shampoo, and hear the distant laughter of the people on the rides all around them. Maybe there's a dog barking in the distance, the screech of an upset child, but all she can focus on are those words.

_I love you, I love you, I love you._ Something in her throat tightens and it makes it hard for her to breathe, or to think, or to do anything but _revel_ in those words. Somehow, as she laughs (it's more of a sob, really), she manages to speak beyond the stinging in her eyes and the feeling that comes with knowing that she's _loved, loved, loved_.

"I love you too," she whispers, and if Emma takes notice the fact that she's crying into her golden hair, that her hands tremble against the center of her back, that the reply is more sobbed than spoken, the girl does not say so.

_**three.**_

When she returns to the house alone, it is Kevin who looks up from whatever game he's playing on the television. It is past his bedtime, but that has never quite mattered to him, and it does not matter to her, now. There is an ache in her chest, something unpleasantly chilled where most cold things were once welcome. "Where's the new girl?" he says. Her fingers twitch at her sides; for a moment, she wonders how the boy would look as a sculpture of ice, surely better because he wouldn't be able to talk — but then, she reminds herself, there is no magic in this world.

There is nothing in this world for her.

Not now — but with a little trying, there will be. She looks at him and does not give an answer. Instead, she says, "Go to bed, Kevin," in the firm voice that always works on all of her foster children.

He obeys, of course, and she watches him take the stairs up two at a time, and then she curls up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate, allowing it to warm her hands but never taking a single sip.

She thinks of the last glimpse of golden hair she'd caught as Emma jerked herself from Ingrid's grip and ran across the street and around the corner, out of sight for what will surely be years and years. She is not sad. Not anymore. You cannot achieve a single thing with sadness. Determination works much better, she's found in the past; determination, and patience. She'd simply reached too far; had held on too tight, had spoken of powers far too soon thinking that it was the right time.

It had been a mistake, yes, but Ingrid does not repeat her mistakes.

_**four.**_

Finding Storybrooke is, somewhat, like finding a needle in a haystack, all on accident. You mean to find the needle, of course, but it is a complete accident when you actually do; and when you just begin to think that there is no needle in the haystack at all, a town spreads out in front of you, streets and buildings and cars included, a woman standing in the middle of a street in a town that exists on no map ever made, a town that might very well be imaginary. It's easy enough to carve out a place for herself. She makes a name. Something ordinary, something boring — Sarah Fisher.

Sarah Fisher likes the color red, but doesn't wear it because she looks terrible in the color red, or at least she thinks so. Ingrid is rather partial to neutral tones, herself. Sarah Fisher likes dogs, but not cats. Ingrid likes cats, but not dogs. Sarah Fisher remembers nothing of her past, just as it should be. She is widely known as Storybrooke's _ice cream lady_, but in all reality, she hates the cold. Again, Ingrid finds the humor in it, even if no one else will.

Sarah Fisher has no family; she lives in a little apartment above the ice cream parlor. Sarah Fisher is alone, but terribly content, and greets her customers with a wide smile and an equally radiant greeting every morning. Sarah Fisher is warm and soft, kind and bright; she cannot tell a lie to save her life, and she's the type of person that catches flies just to let them out instead of killing them. Sarah Fisher compliments everyone; men, women, children, because it brightens their day and there is nothing that Sarah Fisher enjoys more than seeing someone smile because of her. She is somewhat prone to clumsiness, and when she feels as though someone is having a bad day, gives them ice cream on the house, because that's what a good person would do, and Sarah Fisher is a good person.

Sarah Fisher is _ordinary_.

Ingrid is not at all like Sarah Fisher, and that is what makes Sarah Fisher the perfect lie.

_Hello, Storybrooke._

_**five.**_

Regina Mills is a very curious woman. She is suspicious of things she cannot explain and she is angry, and what is more important than that is that she is suspicious of Sarah and angry with Sarah and Ingrid cannot have that. It is perhaps too easy to do what must be done. Sarah _accidentally_ runs into the Mayor one sunny Saturday morning, and she apologizes profusely until her words get mixed up in her mouth and she is stammering. She imagines that, had she not held up the memory stone, the Mayor would have gone off on an angry tangent about how she should have watched where she was going.

It is quiet and no one notices them on the sidewalk, because the citizens of Storybrooke are very good at not noticing things. It is what the curse has instilled in them: what do you mean, I'm not aging? That's silly. What do you mean, my child has been in the same grade for years and years and years? Ridiculous. It makes it so much easier. Not only for Regina, but also for Ingrid. No one notices that, one morning, someone comes to Storybrooke and stays. The Mayor does, naturally. But the Mayor is wavering on her feet, eyes closed, and without the glare she usually wears, she's almost peaceful looking. But then, everyone is peaceful looking in the moment of forgetting.

She pockets the memory rock and, still stuttering apologies, makes her way past Regina Mills and towards her shop. Sarah Fisher smiles the entire way there, but there is nothing wrong with her smile, nothing victorious and slightly sharp and cold.

(Years later, when Regina Mills enters the shop with a little boy in tow, Sarah Fisher grins at them both and tells Regina how charming her son is and Regina smiles, if somewhat awkwardly, if somewhat coolly, and Ingrid draws comparisons between Regina Mills who has forgotten only a tiny piece of her life, the piece with Sarah Fisher holding a tiny, violet-tinged rock in her hand, and the others in Storybrooke who have never remembered any pieces of their past lives at all and finds them very similar indeed.)

_**six.**_

She sees Emma for the first time in such a long time and it feels like coming home after a very long, very cold day, like settling down by the fireplace and relaxing until the warmth from the flames soaks through your flesh and settles deep in your very bones. Emma is beautiful and Ingrid recognizes her immediately; how could she not, with those golden tresses — they seem thicker, brighter, more like spun gold than ever before. Emma has grown into something beautiful from something beautiful and for a moment, Ingrid cannot breathe.

And she cannot breathe when Emma looks at her, with shock-surprise-fear-_hatred_, burning burning burning, and it feels as though a hand has reached out — Emma's hand — and shoved itself into her chest, pressing up through a ribcage carved of fragile ice, shattering off little slivers and pieces along the way as fingertips take hold of her heart and squeezes. Her heart has never been touched, though she knows it is possible; knows that, with a little magic, it can be removed, stored away so that she does not feel this. But she has never been tempted before.

Not even now, when Emma is looking at her like Emma looked at her all those years ago.

She had looked sad, betrayed then — now, she looks only angry and Ingrid cannot decide which is worse. Before she _can_ decide, Emma is talking, and all Ingrid wants to do is let her voice wash over her, but she can't because it's _wrong_ the way Emma sounds is wrong and this is not the reunion that she wants so she holds up the stone and her heart aches as Emma wavers on the spot. She helps a little, before Emma regains control over herself; a little push at the girl's (woman, she's a woman now, young still and angry still and bitter still but she is the Emma that Ingrid remembers and she still loves her so much that it hurts) shoulders and then she curves her fingertips around Emma's arms and steadies her.

She gives her ice cream, gaze fixated intensely on the other's face. If Emma notices, she does not comment on it. Of course she doesn't. She does not know the name Ingrid anymore. She does not know late nights in Richfield, Minnesota eating ice cream and watching movies, always up later than any of the other children because Ingrid allows it, Ingrid allows everything just for Emma, always just for her.

She does not know anything at all, and knowing that burns deep in Ingrid's chest.

It even burns deep in Sarah Fisher's chest, but she masks it with a smile.

Before Emma leaves, she calls, "Come back any time, Emma." She uses her name, not impersonal, warm and soft and caring. Emma does not notice this, either.

Instead, the younger woman nods distractedly and pushes the door open and leaves.

Ingrid moves to the window to watch her.

Emma does not come back.

It isn't the first time.


End file.
